Fashion Advice 22

Fashion Advice 22:
What is the conventional length for dress shirt sleeves? Where should the sleeve reach on our arm/hand?

Question:

I have noticed that Nordstrom shirts have slightly longer sleeve lengths (so a 17.5/33" from them is the same as say a Liz Claiborne or Macy's Geoffrey Beene 34"). I have been told by 3 different people that my sleeve size is 33 1/2 , 34, and 35.... respectively... 35 seems so messy as the sleeve bunches up 33 seems to constrain me when i write on a white board. 34 and 34.5 seems right on most shirts... Is there a convention? i.e. how far from the wrist flex point should a shirt lie? dead on? How far from the V vertex between the thumb and index finger? And if a shirt is too long on the sleeve, how much extra fabric is ok?

Answer:

All these answers can actually be found at Mens Dress Shirts Fit.

The proper way in ensuring the right length for the dress shirts sleeve is to keep our arms by your side and ensure that the cuffs ends at slightly further down the wrist bone without too much gather of fabric at the cuffs.

If you want to measure your sleeve length, you should run the measuring-tape starting from the center of the back of your collar to along the top of the shoulder, then along the arm and down to the wrist bone.

Then add an additional one inch more to allow an extension of about a quarter inch when worn with suits. It also gives additional fabric to avoid the cuffs from pulling back even when the arm is extended in any direction.

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